5h30 pm
15 minutes

I've started a new job working in mental health. Today, a lot of stuff came up in my sit; and I cried some. Hence the 15 minutes; I had to get up to blow my nose.

I'm having difficulty adjusting to my new schedule, and I don't have a day off until December 23rd. Thinking about that also contributed to me being a little stressed out; as I've said before it's difficult for me to sit still when I have so much to do and know I could be being "productive" if I wasn't sitting... which is where mindfulness practices come in.

I find it so funny when yoga and meditation stress me the hell out.

10am
20 seated/day of mindfulness

It's hard for me to write about "days of mindfulness" as I live alone, don't really talk much, and have so many micropractices that really, almost every day is a day of mindfulness.

Nothing really came up during my sit. I felt kind of bored but not distracted. Kept wanting to check the clock, and kept resisting until the alarm went off.

11h15 am
20 minutes

Very aware of all feelings and sensations today. It seemed every time my head tilted slightly the smell of a bonfire filled my nostrils, reminding me of an awesome evening the night before. Legs tingling, left calf feeling like I'm going to get a charlie horse, head kind of hurting, and then the cat decides to repeatedly headbutt my hands because he wants some lovin'.

At the 20 minute mark, kitty won and got scooped up and snuggled until my alarm went off.

Sometimes I feel like this journal is more of a way for me to keep a record of my distractions than a record of my meditation practices.

8 am
25 minutes seated

Tired, groggy. Out late last night celebrating my new found employment with an amazing mental health agency. Headache. Fun to observe headaches, as mine tend to move around my brain and don't stay in any particular area. Found it too difficult to kneel so I "sat" in savasana.

Feelings of longing and grasping as I should be back in Chicago for Thanksgiving but I'm here, and missing my family. Allowed this feeling to spin into a story about how I should suck it up as I'm the one who chose to live so far away. These thoughts are the ones that make me the most upset, I think, especially because my grandparents aren't getting any younger, and they pretty much raised me, and now I see them perhaps once a year. Things like this shouldn't make me sad... it's impermanence, and a natural process to get older and move out and live your life and experience awesome things, and I have! And I'm grateful! And I realize that growing old and death are a part of life.

I started to focus less on what I was missing and more on loving kindness, to myself and my loved ones that I couldn't be with today. Thankful to be gainfully employed. Thankful to have two "homes", along with family and friends in many other cities across the world. Thankful to be ridiculously in love. Thankful for my cat, the roof over my head, my yoga, my meditation, public transportation, free health care, my happiness, my sadness, the people who annoy me, everything everything everything. The TV show Glee even! My teaching! My teachers! So much to be thankful for on this day and always.

Happy Thanksgiving :)

I find it so hilarious that whenever someone tells me to let go, I get more and more angry. I just couldn't let go of The Grump today. I have nothing to be grumpy about.

Sat today before asana practice. I couldn't stop moving, couldn't stop opening my eyes, couldn't sit up straight, couldn't stop looking around the room. I was so not there it wasn't even funny. I just fucking annoyed by the time the teacher came into the room, which spilled over into my practice, and annoyance just turned to sheer anger and rage. I felt absolutely nothing throughout practice and several times, almost got up to leave. I didn't feel like practicing today, but went anyway hoping that I'd feel different after, and no. I don't know. Lately I've just been uninspired to sit, uninspired to practice, and uninspired to teach. I really hate these periods (although I must say they do turn me into a better teacher) and I'm grateful to have some time off next week after Wednesday. Of course, I'm hating the fact I'm not making money and hating the fact I ended up not being able to go home for Yanksgiving but downtime and a stay-cation in Toronto is perhaps what I need.

So today, I think I'm just going to be Angry Buddha. Tomorrow hopefully I'll be a different Buddha. And Ill try not to make my flow class this evening too intense, for the sake of my students. :P

11h15ish
on the subway

Hi! Remember me? I practiced on the subway today on my way home from teaching. I find if I draw awareness to my breath while on the subway and close my eyes, I'm less likely to fall asleep and miss my stop.

Bout of insomnia last night brought about bells of mindfulness. Resisted the urge to panic and spin stories about how I'm going to be up all night and pass out in my classes this morning, and just made sure I kept my eyes shut, my forehead unwrinkled, and my breath calm. Feelings of anger towards the cat as he kept clawing at my window catterwauling because one of the neighbourhood cats decided to sleep on my patio furniture, which apparently pissed Phoenix off. He didn't stop until I yanked him away from the window, tucked him under my arm like a football, and forced him to lay down next to me. Ahhh quiet. I think I fell in and out of sleep around 2 am. I don't remember sleeping, missed both alarms, and the only reason I woke up was because Phoenix was biting my face. I somehow managed to fly out the door in ten minutes, ignoring my morning mindfulness practices.

Fighting sleep on the subway home. Also feeling paranoia and disgust as people are coughing and sneezing around me and not bothering to cover up. Wondering if deep vs. shallow breathing are more/less likely to earn me H1N1 with people seeming so sick around me. Distracted. Relief as my subway stop was called and I got to leave the train - relief from leaving the sickos or relief from "sitting", I couldn't tell which :)

1h50 pm
25 minutes seated

I just want to point out... I'm such a huge bliss head. hahahah.

Began sitting by contemplating the fourth foundation of mindfulness. Mind quickly moved to other things like, boys, money, and jobs. Felt this huge bubble of happiness just above my heart and couldn't stop smiling. Or rocking from side to side as if I became a metronome. Stillness, apparently, wasn't an option for me today. I didn't notice my alarm go off, but noticed I had finished my sit when I impatiently opened my eyes to check to see if I was almost done. Weird.

Last night my "sit" was a fifteen minute guided meditation in one of my yoga classes. I hadn't done guided meditation in a long time and I enjoyed it. I need to see if there's anything around here that could offer me that on a more regular basis.

Yoga'asana has been really strong lately. I feel like I'm over my laziness hump and back to actually doing productive things. Like, you know, moving my limbs. haha

Taking Refuge #3

Thanks for posting these again Frank! This Taking Refuge is about sangha, which is simply people who come together to challenge things like greed, anger, hatred, etc and are fully committed to awakening. I really, really love the concept of sangha and am so blessed be in such a great one with fellow teachers, students, coworkers, friends and practitioners.

1. Do you have contact with people living with/in wisdom and compassion, or who aspire to do so?

Yes I do! I decided that when I wanted to make positive changes in my life I wanted to surround myself with people that I respected and held high regards for so that I could continue to grow on my own little journey in life.

2. Do you feel isolated? If so, why?

Sometimes! Isolated in the sense that I'm physically alone (in the human sense, as in without a roommate/partner... but there's always the cat) but I know that if I reached out, made phone calls, sent text messages, etc, I would be surrounded by friends. I don't really think I'm ever truly truly alone or isolated though.

3. Do you make any effort to attend gatherings of committed practitioners?

Yes! I make an effort six days a week to go to a studio to practice physical asana, I attend kirtans, and basically hang out at the studios I teach at. I remember going to teach in Ottawa this summer, and I didn't know Tracey or Paula or anyone over there. Tracey picked me up at the train station, welcomed me with open arms, brought me back to the studio and within minutes everyone was treating me like we'd known each other for years. I like knowing that I can go into probably any Moksha studio and feel that I'm going somewhere that is close to home, to a community of people who share a common goal with me. It's a pretty unique experience and I find it so hard to describe the feelings and emotions connected with this experience in any sort of language. But it makes my belly really warm and my heart engorged and it feels like a bonfire is blazing behind my eyes and my lips permanently turned upwards. :)

4. Are people all the same, different, both or neither?

You need to operationally define what you mean when you write same different both neither :P

We can say we're the same as we're all made up of the same fundamental elements. This gives us a basic connection to everything that does (not) exist on our planet.

Slight variations in DNA allow us to develop unique characteristics which set us apart from other human beings. Living and social environments further help to nurture us, providing us with external experiences to develop more ways of setting ourselves apart in our belief systems, taste preferences, intro- or extro-version, etc. Which is also why we can say that we're "different".

So because we are all made up of the same things, and we vary from each other due to millions of little factors, we can also say we're "both" the "same" and "different". Which would mean, we would also have to be "neither" because it's all nothing anyways.

:)

11h45 ish
15 minutes in a hot room before class

Before anything else - I'm totally adding nail clipping and filing into a bell of mindfulness. Thank you, Leah.

Again, I "just sat" before I "just practiced". I kept noticing how I was squinting my eyes shut, which was kind of funny. I didn't feel like I was anticipating the teacher coming up to teach the class or anything, and I wasn't grasping to stay longer. I fidgeted for a good six minutes or so before I settled into this really really cool deep calm concentration that I haven't felt in a LONG ASS TIME. I didn't even really notice the teacher had come into the room until she told everyone to stretch and I felt people move around me. And then proceeded to have one of the most intense, grounding practice I've had in FOREVER. Seriously I've created a story that I've been super failing at physical asana lately as the heat has really been getting to me, and in room temperature practices I've just been so full of judgement and all over the place. It's like I went from questioning myself why I bother to do any of this in the first place to having all these brilliant A-HA moments reminding myself why I'm on this journey (and I'm on this journey because it is a journey - a less maladaptive one than the one I was on before!)

Anyway.

Thanks for the advice Frank!

10 am
20 minutes, on my cushion

So taking FBJ's advice today, I "just sat" and "did nothing". Didn't meditate, didn't think about impermanence, nothing about exercises 13-15 in Breathe!, nothing.

And I giggled a lot.

Thought about what I'd say at my job interview and kept reviewing mental illnesses in my mind, what I'd say, what I'd wear, if I should wear my hair up or down...

Got at charlie horse at the 20 minute mark, and stood up to walk it out.

4h30
25 minutes seated


Nothing ground breaking today. It's weird because it's a show week and usually all my mind does is serenade me whilst sitting. Ah well. Last performance is tonight; maybe it's already terminating what I've learned? hahaha

I don't know if its because I'm focusing on impermanence in my breaths during my sit, or because it's autumn going into winter, but I see it all around me. I'm even more sensitive to it in my emotions. I've had several times this week where my mind has been about to take me on an emotional roller coaster but I was able to tell myself how these things I'm worried about won't matter always, and things are they way they are and how things might be crappy, but just because they were crappy, I didn't really need to suffer by them. Hello mindfulness flood light!

4h00 pm
cushion
25 minutes

First time sitting in almost a week!

Surprisingly, the mind was pretty calm today. I hadn't much to do today so I was relatively relaxed and unstressed. This was the first time in awhile! I observed the impermanence of my breath. It reminded me of the breath concentration exercises we did way back in the beginning. But it was nice to just notice the breath as it moves in and out. Some are shorter, some are longer, some are deep and some make me want to take a bigger breath the next time I inhale. I find when I focus on one thing, such as breathing, or a mantra, or a chant, the psychos in my brain stop chattering.

You know. I really suck at finding time to sit. Every month I tell myself it will get better, and every month, better just doesn't happen.

I will seriously do yoga until the cows come home.

Finding a time during the day where I can kneel on my cushion for a solid half hour is a completely different story.

Fourth Month Assignment

As I sit down to write this month’s assignment, there is a little add at the top of my gmail window:

Hey There Negative Person
Ur Negativity Is Bringing You Down. See What Happier Can Do About That.
www.happier.com


I’ll take that as a hint to lighten up.

I feel like I have yogini’s writer’s block, so I don’t know how this will turn out, but here goes.

Starting in a seated, comfortable position, close your eyes and relax your face. Try not to move your eyeballs around in your head. Try to relax the tongue away from the roof of the mouth, let the jaw open and drop and bring the teeth away from each other. Notice if you’re holding tension in the shoulders, neck, or upper back. Breathe into any areas you feel tension in and try to ease that away through breathing. Draw your awareness any thoughts, or mental formations which might be coming up in the mind. See these thoughts for what they are. Notice that they are there, and try not to let them turn into stories. Don’t try to purposely activate the mind, letting primary thoughts become secondary thoughts, etc. Just keep coming back to your breathe. Just sitting. Just breathing. Just being open and noticing everything that is going on.

At the sound of the bell, allow the eyes to open. Gently come on to all fours, with the wrists below the shoulders, and the knees below the hips. From a table top pose, inhale, and tilt the tailbone and the gaze up towards the ceiling, coming into cow pose. Exhale into cat pose. Use your breath to wake the body up, again noticing if any thoughts are arising in the mind. Try to seem them for just what they are, not dwelling on them or creating stories.

From table top, use your breath to get back to a neutral spine, and curl the toes under to extend the sit bones to the ceiling, coming into downward dog. See if you feel any relief in this pose. See if you feel tension. See if your mind starts to create stories about this posture. From here, bring 80% of the weight into the palms of your hands. Notice how this changes your breathing. Notice if even more thoughts start to pile up into the brain as we ask ourselves how much longer we’ll have to hold this pose. Draw more of the weight back into the feet, and notice if we start to create stories of relief and happiness as we make our way back to a more equal weight distribution. Slowly start to walk the feet up in between the hands, bending the knees if you need to so the spine can lengthen towards the floor, the head and the neck can relax, and the fingertips can touch the floor in a passive forward bend.

Notice if you feel any relief from downward dog here. Notice if your mind is clinging to that relief, and anticipating any posture that might or might not be coming up in your asana practice. Bring the hands to the hips and with a straight spine, inhale your way back to standing.

With the feet firmly rooted into the floor, arms at the sides, notice if there is any clinging or grasping with the mind – was there an urge to go from a passive forward bend to an active one? Is the mind longing to fold the body in half again so we can get more of a stretch and release through the hamstrings? Or are we present in the body, in the brain, and being right here, right now? Observe the sensations in the feet, the legs, moving up the body, doing a bit of a scan. Draw the ears so that they’re in line with the shoulders, and try to grow two inches taller by lengthening through the crown of the head. At the same time, press into the big toe mounds of the feet, firmly rooting the feet into the floor to get a solid standing foundation. Just be right here in tadasana.

Mindfully make your way so that you are laying back on down on your mat. Try to feel the body relaxing further towards the floor with each exhale you take. Notice if your mind is coming up with stories about today’s practice, and see the thoughts as thoughts, the breath as breath, and the stillness as stillness. We are just bringing awareness to what is going on in the mind, and the body, and trying to be present with that. Try to allow the body to relax into a state of mind where thoughts aren’t coming up, stories aren’t being told, and we are just present with our breathing, in and out. Namaste.

2h00 pm
10 minutes

Found it really hard to concentrate this afternoon as I have too much on my mind (haha, when don't I?). Asana practice was all over the place and I felt pretty angry the entire time. In the middle of my sit I thought about how I have an assignment due and decided to end my sit so I could work on that, which brings me to 40 minutes later and I'm still staring at a blank word document on my computer screen. I feel like I've hardly had a chance to actually sit and think and engage in the third foundation of mindfulness this month and therefore, feel like I don't have anything to offer because I'm not so sure myself if I understand it. I guess, to me, it just feel like the same things I have been studying for the last four months, and therefore, I'm grasping and trying to find that one little "different" thing, to make this month's practice, meditation, and savasana unique. I'm literally at a writer's block and don't really know what to do.

I keep forgetting my micropractices this week and it's making me pissy.

Frank, you used to post questions for contemplation to the board (taking refuge, etc etc etc). I haven't seen any questions for contemplation with regards to the Moksha training. Would it be at all possible if you could perhaps post some? If you did and I missed it, totally my bad :)

2h00 pm
25 minutes

Whenever I'm preparing for a show and I sit I can't get music out of my head. Today it was Britten's War Requiem, which I'm performing next week for Remembrance Day. I felt completely distracted, as instead of focusing on kindness and love and easing away anger, I found myself singing whole tone scales in my mind, then lightly humming, raising my eyebrows, practicing... jesus h. christ. I felt frustrated to say the least.

Breath concentration. Kickin' it back old school to du-sa-ni-ma. There we go. Breath becomes calm, brain becomes silent. Echos of whole tone scales in the back but they're not in the front of my brain so that's ok. Feel my heart start to get more calm. Fidget a little as I feel my shins get prickly. Feel warmth in the center of my chest and bring a bit of a smile to my lips. Notice tingles, notice hunger, breathe breathe breathe. Totally get startled when my alarm buzzes. Feel like the zen's been kicked out of me. Ah well.

10 am
25 minutes seated

Loving kindness meditation as my house is filled with the homemade macaroni and cheese baking in the oven. I found myself paying more attention to the aroma filling my nostrils than I was paying attention to being happy, at ease, and free from suffering.

It's been a great few days to practice it as I've been down on myself and not getting questions answered and basically playing the what if and I should have game in my mind over and over, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. What's cool now is I can see how I can get so carried away by my mental formations so in noticing that I think it's been easier for me to allow myself to know that in five years, what I'm feeling right now probably is only going to make me laugh.

During my sit I also noticed feelings of nervousness, restlessness, and just a general fear of the unknown coming into my mind and in to my life. I think most of my sit my brow was all furrowed. I kept noticing the tension in my forehead and eyebrows and having to relax it over and over again!